


many sorrows i have seen (but i don't forget all who took the road with me)

by wiznearbi



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Basically goes from pre-season one through each season talking about the people Gwen has lost, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon relationships bc this aint about shipping folks sorry about that, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Give my girl a BREAK, Guinevere Character Study, Gwen has been through a lot and I don't think that's addressed enough, Minor Character Death, can be read as mild morgwen tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 12:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16449905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiznearbi/pseuds/wiznearbi
Summary: Gwen has felt the pain of loss more than once during her lifetime. It's not easy, but she has to move on.(title from 'The Last Goodbye' by Billy Boyd bc goddamn does that song make me feel things)





	many sorrows i have seen (but i don't forget all who took the road with me)

**Author's Note:**

> Jumps from pre-series 1, after series 1, after series 2, etc. through each season.

Gwen had lost 3 important people in her life so far.

The first was her old cat, Snowy (who wasn’t exactly a ‘person’, but let’s forget about that for the sake of poor four-year-old Guinevere). He was an old, grey, skinny thing. He would eat fish out of Gwen’s hands and she would giggle as his pink tongue tickled her palm. Little Gwen lost Snowy one rainy night when the thunder had her curled up on her bed, shivering with the cold. A two-year-old Elyan cried into his father’s arm beside her as she leaned into her mother’s side. Snowy sat near them on the windowsill, fast asleep. Gwen couldn’t exactly remember all the details, but she knew she had been distraught when Snowy wouldn’t wake up the next morning.

The second was her mother. Kinsey was beloved by all those who knew her; for she was a kind, compassionate woman with a fierce temper but a heart of gold. Many would always say that young Guinevere took after her in almost every way - despite Elyan resembling her more in looks - and Gwen would feel pride upon hearing this. Her mother was her hero, and she never stopped being so, not even when she passed away from an incurable illness on Gwen’s sixth summer. She would sometimes think about her and lament the fact that she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember exactly what her face looked like. Wasn’t it lined with wrinkles from how she used to smile? Did she have brown eyes, or hazel? Nevertheless, Gwen continued to carry her memory inside of her. She wouldn’t forget.

The third was her brother, Elyan. He was always a bit impulsive. Tom would always talk of how skilled Elyan was in the forge and how he would love for the boy to take over his practice in the future (“With your help, of course, Gwen!” he laughed, when young Guinevere protested that she would be able to do it just as well as Elyan) but Gwen knew that Elyan had an adventurers heart. He longed to travel, to go where his gut told him to and never mind the consequences. She always knew he would leave one day or at least try to, but she didn’t expect him to do it so soon. A few months after Guinevere had begun working for the Lady Morgana (a wonderful girl, if only all nobles were like her), Elyan and Tom had the most terrible row, and she had come home to nothing but a note from her brother and a quiet father. It was the last note he wrote for a long time, and although Elyan had not (to her knowledge) died, with the almost complete lack of communication as to where he was and what he was doing he might as well have been. Still, as bitter and angry as he’d made her feel, she wished him well with whatever he was doing and prayed he would not get himself in trouble without her to bail him out.

It was a year or so after he left when Gwen, now nineteen and still Morgana’s maid, met Merlin. He was a wonderful boy; funny, maybe a little attractive (although those feelings did not take long to disappear) but she could not help but feel as if there was something about him. Something that would change her life forever.

* * *

Gwen had lost 5 people in her life so far.

The fourth was Lancelot. A kind, soft-spoken man, honourable and noble. He had taken an obvious liking to her and her to him, a fool would say it was love at first sight. Guinevere was not foolish. She knew that what she felt for Lancelot had only been an attraction, but she couldn't help but feel that it could have grown into something more had he not decided to leave that night. He was everything Gwen had dreamed of in a man, and his goodness was so unlike any other she had met (except for maybe Merlin). She longed to see him again, to get to know him, but perhaps Guinevere and Lancelot were just not meant to be. 

The fifth, Lord help her, was her father. Gwen felt as if all love and respect she had for the King of Camelot shattered the night he murdered Tom. It was murder, she knew it, for her father was innocent. She blamed everyone involved in his death; Uther, Tauren, the men that killed her, herself. Even Elyan for not replying to the letter she wrote him (shakily, the ink splattered and smudged on the paper) to inform him that their father was gone. She was inconsolable for a long time, and she dreaded going to her house. It was as if her father's ghost resided in there; in his clothes, his bed, his workshop. Gwen could not look at another blacksmith's tool for days, and she would break down when she realised that her dad would never be here again. He wouldn't be there to hug her, to tell her he loved her, to crack a joke when she felt down. For the first time in a long time, Guinevere felt alone. Morgana was like an angel sent from heaven. She begged Gwen to take some time to grieve, although Gwen could not help but feel a little betrayed when Morgana and the King left to Morgana's own father's grave as if Uther had not orphaned another girl only a week prior. Guinevere could also sense that something else had occurred when Merlin asked her - to her horror - if she would kill Uther if need be, and when Morgana and Uther returned from Gorlois's grave with the news that Uther had been attacked by Tauren, only a night or so after Gwen had told Morgana of the wizard approaching her in the night about a stone. She buried the suspicion inside of her, though, for her father was _dead_ and she was an _orphan_ and that was a far more difficult thing to comprehend. 

Her life had changed so much in the past few months but she remained strong for others' sakes. Merlin's friendship with Arthur had resulted in Gwen becoming much more well-acquainted with the prince, and she came to realise that he was not, in fact, a surly bully at heart, but a boy who'd never known the love of a parent and had grown up thinking it was weak to love others. Her heart ached just a little for him, but she wasn't sure she would consider him a friend, seeing as he was a prince and she was a servant.

She had also come so close to dying with the accusation of sorcery, and Gwen felt sick in the stomach whenever she heard of a sorcerer being taken prisoner. She never attended another execution again if she could help it, and sometimes she would wonder if entertaining the thought of 'perhaps they were innocent?' would be considered treason. 

* * *

Gwen had lost 6 people in her life so far.

The sixth had been Morgana. Kind, sweet Morgana, who had lived in constant fear due to her nightmares and had been more than a friend to Gwen. They had known each other for almost three years, and in that time the gracious and beautiful ward had gained Guinevere's absolute trust. The thought that Morgana could be out there in the hands of a sorceress who tried to kill the King (not that she would have cared, but Morgause would have gone for Arthur next and she had already taken Morgana) chilled her to the very bone. She tried to believe Gaius when he told her that Morgana was strong enough to survive whatever she was enduring back there. Was she dead? She couldn't be. Gwen wanted her back, she was so tired of feeling alone.

Lancelot came and went. He left like he had before, without a face-to-face goodbye, and Gwen decided at that very moment that if Fate really wanted to make her choose between him and Arthur; the man who always left and the man who always stayed, she could only go with the obvious choice. They both respected her, but at least Arthur made a point about actually asking _her_ about what she wanted. Still, it wasn't as if anything could happen between them, perhaps she would find another one day.

The Great Dragon attacked Camelot and wrecked complete havoc. All of her friends lost someone they cared about that day, and Gwen was almost glad that she had no-one left to lose (Except Arthur and Merlin). Merlin came back from the search for the Dragonlord Balinor with a tear-streaked face. She tried to comfort him the best she could, but he never lost that saddened look in his eyes that made him seem older than he really was. Gwen felt for him, she really did, and she hoped that there was at least someone there who could help him with whatever secrets he held from her. 

* * *

Gwen had lost 5 people in her life so far

Elyan returned. He apologised for all that he had done and she forgave him, for he was her baby brother once and would always be so, knight or no. Morgana returned too, and Gwen thought for a while with glee that perhaps it was only four people she had lost, after all, but Morgana had changed. When the immortal army marched into Camelot and took all those who defied them and Morgana smirked as the crown touched her head, Morgause grinning with pride behind her, Gwen felt the sickly feeling that the number was still five. When the battle was over and she watched as her brother and the others were officially knighted, she decided that Morgana was well and truly dead to her, for the cold woman who ordered the heartless slaughtering of innocent townspeople was not the woman she had grown to love a year ago. The number stayed on five. 

Merlin remained a friend to her, encouraging her in her growing relationship with Arthur and helping her in any way possible. He was still somewhat a mystery to her, but at least what she showed her about himself was genuine.

* * *

Gwen had still only lost 5 people in her life so far, but that had - for a while - been 6 again.

She lost Lancelot yet again. She'd tried her best to break off any romantic connection with him now that Arthur was courting her, but talking to him was still a little awkward for she was almost certain he still had feelings for her. She tried to forget about that and saw him as a good friend. He went with Arthur to get rid of the Dorocha with the promise that he would protect the prince at all costs. He was true to his word, and Gwen wept at the fact that Lancelot was taken from her a third and last time, and perhaps it was her fault. Why was it that Lancelot always brought her heartbreak?

Arthur was almost taken from her too, and she could barely remember how. Her thoughts after wearing that bracelet of Lancelot's were a blur (how was it that Lancelot had come back and left a fourth time, and ruined her life in the process?) but she knew she had lost her will and she knew she had kissed him and she knew that Arthur had felt betrayed. He hadn't deserved that. Arthur Pendragon did not deserve all the misfortune that came with his life. 

Merlin tried his best to mend their relationship and she was grateful for it as she walked down the aisle, only seconds away from being crowned Queen of Camelot.

* * *

Queen Guinevere Pendragon had lost 9 people in her life so far.

Snowy, Kinsey, Elyan, Lancelot, Tom, Morgana...

Gwaine, the bubbly and talkative knight. She did not know him as well as she liked, and not on a personal level, but he was still her friend. Percival returned from their quest to locate and kill Morgana with bad news. Gwaine was dead, and Morgana was not. There would be no more tavern tales and scandalous jokes, no more shameless flirting and sly winks. No more Gwaine.

Arthur, her husband and the light of her life. Everything he did was for her and everything she did was for him. He was not her first love, but he would always be her last, When the news came that the King had perished on the shores of Avalon, Guinevere vowed then and there that she would never love another, for it always ended in tragedy. She remained strong as she became a widow, as she was forced to sleep next to an empty pillow in her bed, forced to see him in every nook and cranny of the castle. In the ground where he would train young knights, in the kitchens where he would sometimes sneak her cakes from, in the throne room, next to her on the round table...she couldn't bear it, but she had to for the kingdom's sake.

Merlin, too, was but a shell of a man when he returned from Avalon. He was like a lost puppy with no master to follow now that his King was dead, and he stuck to Gaius's side like glue. Gwen would look at him sometimes and try to fathom exactly how this boy was the same man who defeated armies and commanded dragons. She felt sick with heartache for him and she tried her absolute best to coerce him back to how he was but it did not take Gwen long to realise she had lost him the moment she lost Arthur. Merlin and her husband were like two sides of the same coin, and neither could exist fully without the other.

He healed a bit over time, but he was still so different. He would not joke like he used to with Arthur, and Gwen understood. She just wished that he would too. 

Gwen did not have time to mourn when she had a kingdom to run. She was richer than she had ever been in her life, more successful than any woman she had ever known. but she had never felt poorer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway my girl has gone through so many traumatic experiences bc they decided to use her as a plot device and idk bout you but :/ she deserves way better


End file.
